Vani Kola: an NRI success story
ISHANI DUTTAGUPTA
Silicon Valley, OCTOBER 31, 2005
ISHANI DUTTAGUPTA
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Vani Kola is the typical uber successful Silicon Valley
tech entrepreneur whose first e-procurement company
RightWorks was acquired by Internet Capital Group
(ICG) for $657 million in a deal that valued the start-up
at $1.25 billion in 2000. RW was later acquired by
I2 Technologies.
Kola, the founder & CEO of the company, received
$22 million in cash and about $635 million in stock.
But, of course, she didnt stop there. She went
on to set up NthOrbit, a company that supported technology
development and seed funding. Her most recent start-up
was Certus Software which targeted the Sarbanes-Oxley
compliance space and became a market leader in the
financial compliance market.
Software business models are fundamentally
changing, so lots of interesting companies that provide
a service-based applications will have a role. RFID
applications are also interesting and I see a lot
of opportunity for security, identity management,
regulatory conformance type of solutions, says
Kola, the founder and former CEO of Certus, who is
today completely uninvolved with the company and wants
to spend the next ten years differently.
It will be defined by being involved in a few
companies deeply and bringing leverage and creating
impact. In the last ten years I have been singularly
focused on being an entrepreneur/CEO and building
my companies, she adds. As for her future role
while she has not fully established the business model
which shes going to adopt, she wants to help
young companies into sustainable businesses and work
with smart people and enable them to achieve their
potential.
Her other interests are raising her two daughters
Tara and Sandya and musing about finding the perfect
balance between work and family. Kola was supported
in her first start-up by Dr Suhas Patil, veteran entrepreneur
and VC, who apart from funding RightWorks with $2
million of his money, also mentored her. And today
she finds herself in the role of a mentor and IT visionary.
I sold RWs and founded Certus. From a business
perspective the effort to build a new business and
to lead a emerging market is the same. Meaning that
it is never easy. The only advantage is experience
gives you a more balanced perspective. But I learnt
tremendously from my second start-up also. The market
conditions were different. If anything, the second
time was harder since the internet bubble was not
there. Everyone was more skeptical about funding,
about joining a start-up.
Shes also more involved now in mentorship activities
at The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE). I want to
be more actively involved in mentoring young companies
and also women professionals. I am a very focused
person in terms of my commitments. I tend to not get
involved in anything without getting fully engaged,
she says.
As a successful woman entrepreneur of Indian origin,
Kola is committed to Forum for Women Entrepreneurs
and Executives (FWE&E). They do a terrific
job of pulling together women and key topics and valuable
networks. This group has been very useful to me. TiE
as a general network versus womans network has
always been valuable, but recently there is tremendous
interest in having a womans forum under TiE
charter.
I am involved with this. I think it will serve a
special purpose in enabling women to reach out for
sharing and learning and build strong woman network.
I am very impressed with the accomplishments of Indian
woman and I think it is time to have this type of
a network become active and take a life of its own,
she says.
Even Kola, who has been profiled in numerous books
and is identified as one of the top 10 entrepreneurs
in Silicon Valley, feels there are glass ceilings.
Being a woman and being brought up in a traditional
Indian family comes with certain advantages and disadvantages.
I think the challenges we face are less important
than how we choose to face them.
It is not the actions of others that we need to judge,
we need to define ourselves by our reactions and responses.
Yes, it is true that many times women are marginalized,
or are always mistaken for a lower role other than
their accomplishments. Women in a leadership role
need to deal with how to help men who resent working
for them, how to not be patronized, how to not be
cheated in business dealings, how not to get affected
by being excluded or wrongly judged.
I think it is important to focus on being positive
yourself, being confident in your role and success,
to be comfortable with choices you have made. Frankly,
I think our attitude can help overcome any handicaps.
From that point of view, I really think that the Valley
is a great place to work and my challenges solely
attributable to being a woman have not been that significant,
she says.
Kola, who graduated in electrical engineering from
Osmania University in Hyderabad, still visits the
city where she has family. RightWorks eventually
had operations in Bangalore and Certus has operations
in Chennai, she says.
She herself does not participate in the management
teams any longer.
I only like to do projects that I can be deeply
engaged in and feel committed to. I like to hold myself
accountable for outcome and results. I want my success
and failure measured by the success or failure of
projects I am engaged in. So being an armchair coach,
removed from results is not fulfilling to me,
she says.
As for Patil, she feels he was a great mentor because
he genuinely enjoys giving and sharing from his experiences.
He likes to see others grow and succeed. A good
teacher takes pride and passion in teaching what they
know and allowing the student to spread their wings
and fly. It is a model I want to strive to embody.
Whether I successfully do so or not will be something
I will have to look back 10 years from now,
she says.